


Edge In Your Affection

by killalla



Category: Person of Interest (TV)
Genre: Community: Meme of Interest, F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-05
Updated: 2013-05-05
Packaged: 2017-12-10 10:15:44
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 963
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/784914
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/killalla/pseuds/killalla
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>I want to know what he knows. I want to touch what he touched.  Call me by his name.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Edge In Your Affection

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the POI Kink Meme

"She's lovely, Harold. Honestly, I don't know how you can stand to live without her." - Root, Person of Interest 2.21, "Zero Day"

***

Perhaps it had been inevitable, and she'd known even from the very beginning. Because she gave Grace her real name. She’s still not sure why she did it – among hacker circles, she's always used her handle, and when she needed an alias, she chose the names of scientists and inventors. It's been her signature, just like Finch and his birds. But some instinct made her sign that first e-mail “Sam Groves". Maybe some part of her had already decided, had known what she wanted. What she was going to do.

Of course, she’d been delighted with the initial discovery – she’s always been good at finding flaws in the system, and this weakness of Harold’s was too good not to exploit. It's five minutes to midnight, she needs every advantage she can get, and hurting bystanders might not be enough to control him anymore. Hurting his one true love, on the other hand - that would still work.

***

Samantha Groves, magazine copywriter and aspiring children’s book author, first wrote to Grace Hendricks, illustrator, asking about a possible collaboration. A colleague at The Borough had suggested that Grace’s hand-drawn style would be a perfect fit for “Birds of a Feather,” her story about a sparrow and a bloodhound who become the best of friends.

They met to discuss the project over coffee in the little Italian café off of Washington Square Park, and again the next week for an afternoon of browsing the bookstores, and later still for lunch at Mancini’s followed by a visit to the Impressionism, Fashion, and Modernity exhibit at the Met. They’d soon discovered that they had a lot in common, growing up as misfits in small American towns, sharing a love of Dickens and Austen, although where the Brontë sisters were concerned, Sam preferred Charlotte while Grace favoured Emily.

***

What she hadn’t counted on was becoming friends, best friends – the closest she’s had since Hanna. She’d learned the when and the how of Harold and Grace’s relationship, but in time she came to understand the why as well. Because unlike almost everyone else in their world, Grace had no dark secrets, no hidden agendas, and the way she trusted – so easily, so completely – it was as if she was putting her heart in your hands. 

They had been meeting for about month before the night that Grace told Sam about the accident that killed her fiancé, Harold, a few years back. It had been sudden and devastating, no body to recover, no proper way to grieve. And in turn Sam found herself confessing the story of Hanna’s disappearance and murder, things she’d never told anyone before. She’d had to leave a few parts out, but mostly it was truth – how much it had hurt, how desperate and angry she’d been, and how even now she sent Barbara Russell a copy of Flowers for Algernon every year, as a reproach and a reminder. 

They’d both cried that night, mouring what had been lost, sobbing and sniffling and ugly. Sam had crashed on the couch in the living room. In the morning, there had been coffee and croissants and a long lingering hug goodbye on the doorstep. She knew that Harold wasn’t watching, problems with the Machine and the virus have left him too busy for his usual stalking. But that morning she almost wished he had been, because she wanted him to see this, to see her. 

***

And that was when she understood. She’d just been looking for a hostage, a weakness, but what she found instead was an answer, a solution.

_I’m going to take her from you, Harold. I’m going to stop her from wasting her life on a false memory. Because I’m willing give her what you couldn’t, what you can’t anymore. And once she's mine, I’ll never let her go._

***

“I know you loved him, and you were happy together, but it’s been _three years_. It’s not as if he’s coming back, Grace. You should at least think about dating again.”

“Oh Sam, how would I even meet someone? I’m terrible with social media, I'm always drawing, the only friends I have work at the magazine – except for you. Besides, you should talk – you're not dating anyone, are you?”

“There was someone I was interested in, for a while. An older man - I respected and admired him, and I wanted him to notice me. But it was just an obsession, really. It wasn’t love.”

***

It’s not that difficult, in the end. They meet every weekend now anyway, and then one week it was Girls’ Night: classic movies and cheap chardonnay, snuggling under the same blanket, tipsy, tentative kisses that become deeper, more impassioned. Gentle, clever hands, whispered endearments, red hair and black tangled together on the pillow. And when Grace arches her hips and cries out, it’s not a dead man’s name that she gasps – it’s hers. 

***

Hi sweetie,

Sorry I missed our coffee date - something came up at the last minute. In fact, I have to go out of town for a few days on a research trip – this editor is a nightmare to work with. But I should be back soon, and then I want to ask if you’ll come away with me. I have some vacation coming up, and we could go to Venice - like you’d always wanted to. I’ve found a cute and inexpensive little pension in Cannaregio – it will be perfect, I promise. There’s so much that you’ve locked yourself away from, these past few years, and I want to show you all of it. (I might even have an extra surprise.) I’ll talk to you soon.

Love you!

Sam


End file.
